ATD Lends Expertise in Creating a Culture of Evidence to TCUs

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The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) and Achieving the Dream (ATD) launched a two-year initiative at eight small, rural tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) designed to increase student success and completion by strengthening the colleges’ use of data and technology.

Under resourced colleges often lack the fundamental institutional capacities that enable them to undertake the kinds of whole-college transformation efforts such as structured pathways and developmental education reform that lead to significant improvement in student outcomes. Building data and technology capacity is particularly important at TCUs, which have student populations that are at least 85 percent American Indians and Alaska Natives and first generation college students from high-poverty rural communities. ATD coaches will assist the participating colleges in learning to prepare disaggregated, longitudinal student cohort data, conduct survey and qualitative analyses, and analyze data to diagnose academic challenges, leakage points and performance gaps among student groups.